32-year-old woman biking in Central Park violently attacked, mugged after stopping to pick up dropped AirPods, suspects at large

A manhunt is underway to catch suspects who beat and mugged a 32-year-old woman in New York City's Central Park on the Upper East Side on Sunday night, according to police.

Officials said that the victim was approached by three masked men on Sunday night at around 9:45 pm when she stopped to pick up her dropped AirPods and was struck multiple times in the head. The suspects also stole her backpack, police said. The backpack contained $80, her keys, and headphones. 

The thugs demanded that she hand over her valuables before they started to strike her in the head, face, and neck. There has been a doubling of robberies this year in Central Park, with 19 muggings in comparison to just eight in the same timeframe last year. The woman, identified as Katherine Marroquin, of the Bronx, was on her way home from her job. She started riding her bike through Central Park over the past year as she was afraid of taking the train, per the New York Post.

“I grabbed myself to the bike and I covered my head because they were hitting me hard,” Marroquin said of the crime. They also snatched her phone and tossed it into the lake nearby, she said. When she was getting mugged, her water tumbler fell out of her bag, and she used it to fight back.

“When I saw the cup, the first thing I did was like, ‘Well, they’re gonna kill me,’ so I grabbed the cup and I just randomly hit everywhere,” she said. After she fought back, the attackers fled on foot. Police believe that the suspects were in their early 20s.

“I am thankful that I am ok,” she said, and added that some who are mugged “get hit in the head and never wake up.” She declined medical attention at the scene. “I just wanted to get home because my mom was worried, everybody was worried,” she said. Marroquin later woke up with bruising across her face and hands on Monday.

“I’m still going to bike,” Marroquin said. “I feel like I’m not safe on the train either. That’s one of the reasons I stopped taking the train.” She added that she believes Mamdani's administration needs to do a better job handling crime. “I feel like they deserve consequences, not just, ‘Oh yeah, one ticket and that’s it.’ Then they’re gonna keep doing it again.”